1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a camera system and a method of correcting camera fitting errors.
2. Description of the Related Art
With a camera system such as a vehicle camera system for monitoring the outside of a vehicle by means of the camera fitted to the vehicle, unignorable fitting errors arise when the camera is fitted to the vehicle. When such fitting errors arise, discrepancies appear between the area actually shot by the camera and the area that the camera is supposed to shoot.
On the other hand, reference lines and an expected course line are displayed on the monitor screen for monitoring the outside of the vehicle with the image picked up by the camera. If discrepancies appear between the area actually shot by the camera and the area that the camera is supposed to shoot due to the camera fitting errors, the reference lines and the expected course line are displaced from their proper positions in the image picked up by the camera.
Therefore, there have been proposed outside-the-vehicle monitoring systems that are designed not to display the image picked up by the camera straight but to operate for image transforms in order to improve the recognition on the part of the driver. According to a popular image transform technique, a map showing the corresponding relationship between the input to the image transform system (the image picked up by the camera) and the output of the system (the image output to the monitor screen after the image transform) is prepared and an image transform process is executed by means of the map, while the map is recomputed according to the fitting errors of the camera so as to correct the fitting error of the camera by correcting the scope of display of the monitor screen (see, for example, Jpn. Pat. Appln. Laid-Open Publication No. 2005-217889).